+ can sing all the lyrics to I am a Paleontologist by They Might Be Giants
+ thinks Dinosaur Train is one of the top shows on television
+ can identify scientific names of more than ten dinosaurs correctly
+ has three non-fiction books about dinosaurs checked out from the library
+ has been counting down the days to our trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Anyway.
I've played with it a little though I haven't had a chance to build my
little panel to keep out the reflection yet. It's fun, and while I
certainly don't have time to pick up a new hobby, sometimes that's just
the kind of hobby you need—the one you don't have time for but want to
try anyway.
Yes, it's supposed to look like that. That's the point. : )
We were poking around in the camera this weekend, and found a roll of exposed 620 film inside, an obvious oversight by whoever it was that sold the camera on Ebay. There is a place in Colorado that specializes in old film—even older than this, which is probably from the 1950s or 1960s—so I promptly looked up their mailing address and bought a mailer to send it in. How could I not?? It will take about 8 weeks to get it returned to me, because they mix their chemistry for developing in very small batches. I love that this place still exists, and I love that they said on their website that post-Christmas is their busiest time of year because of all the people who are poking around in family attics over the holidays and find old cameras with old film. Then last night, the following conversation took place:
Matt: So you're really going to get that film developed?
Me: Of course!
Matt: What if it has pictures of dismembered bodies on it? Like a murder from the 1950s?
Me: WHAT??!? That is ridiculous.
Matt: And then they're going to realize the camera got sold and it won't take long before they figure out who has it. [looking around at the door and windows for effect.]
Me: NICE. STOP IT.
Matt: Don't worry, Nancy Drew is upstairs.
: )
I'll be sure to share what is on the roll of film in a few months.
Thanks for playing along! Of course, I do hope you'll consider taking Inspiration Defined even if you weren't the winner today! There will be two more chances to win in the next few weeks, though they won't be here. Think scrapbooking-related sites and wait patiently : ) Or, just go register and skip the contests. Ha.
Congratulations, Judy! Click the "email me" link to the left and we'll get you set up with your free pass!
•••••••••••••••••••••
And for the demographic that is sick of all this insufferable scrapbooking business talk, an excerpt from this morning's conversation with Bridget in the car after dropping Gracie off at school, just for you:
Me: Bridget, we're going to Hobby Lobby to get envelopes.
Bridget: I love the Hobby Lobby! [I'm not even kidding, she's speaking like an Irish girl].
Me: I'm glad you love Hobby Lobby! I love Hobby Lobby too!
Bridget: I love fries. So yummy.
Me: You love fries? (with pretend amazement in my voice, because Bee says this at least four times a day)
Bridget: What?
Me: You love fries?
Bridget: What?
Me: You love...[looking back over my shoulder to find her giggling because she totally got me with the "what" business]
Me: You're a stinker.
Bridget: I'm not a stinker! I'm Bridget!
Me: Nope. You're a stinker.
Bridget: I'm BRIDGET!!!! I'm not a stinker! You're a piece of work Mama. [love that she has already picked up this minor family insult and can properly use it in context. Sigh.]
Me: No, you're a piece of work!
Bridget: I'm BRIDGET! I'm a little bit of a stinker. [big grin]
•••••••
And to the lady who looked at me with equal parts kindness and pity at Hobby Lobby:
Someday your cutie little matchy-match infant is going to be 2.5, too.
I'm excited to announce that my newest workshop at Big Picture Scrapbooking is scheduled to begin on December 31!
It's a four week workshop and will run through January 27, 2010. Inspiration and the creative process are two of my favorite topics, and this workshop is packed full of content. PACKED. I worked really hard on it, as evidenced by the current state of my basement craft area (no, you can't see a photo of it, because it might be the worst it's ever been right now). I haven't made so many pages in a long, long time : ) It's not just pages, though. There are interviews (four of them! With incredibly talented, inspiring women!) and daily emails, tutorials and creative exercises. The color experts at Pantone make an appearance, as do two cereal boxes I've been saving to use in this class for almost two years. All this to say: I'm really, really excited about all of it!
Today is your first chance to win a free pass to take Inspiration Defined. There might be another two chances popping up somewhere on the internet soon, but you'll just have to watch for them. If you've already registered, think of this as a chance to win a really fun Christmas or Hanukkah gift you can give to a crafty friend : ) All you have to do to enter today? Leave a comment and tell me the last thing you saw/clicked on/heard/thought about that inspired you! This class will include a great deal of inspiration sharing on the message board, so this will be a good start!
Comments will close at approximately 8:00 am Mountain Time on Tuesday morning. Good luck!
Thank you to everyone who left a comment—you all have motivated me to try another one of these soon! : ) Even if you didn't win, now is the time to make a photobook anyway, because they're all 20% off for a limited time. And, unlike me, if you pay attention, you can enter the code for free shipping that appears on the front page of Shutterfly's site. Minor criticism eliminated: Elizabeth doesn't pay attention, so deserves to pay shipping costs. Ha.
If you happen to be Tonya F, Linda, or Char please click that "email me"on the left sidebar and I'll send you your special code to use at Shutterfly! Please do so by Monday, November 16; if I haven't heard from you by then, I'll run the random integer tool again and pick another number. Want to be sure you have a little more than the last minute to make your book—remember, codes expire on November 30.
Stop back on Monday if you're scrapbooking-inclined, because I have another giveaway to share then! Thank you for playing along, and thank you to Shutterfly for the terrific opportunity!
Back in August (gasp! August!) I was asked by Savannah Brentnall of Shutterfly to try out their photo book service and share the results here on this blog, plus give a few books away to some blog readers. For a multitude of reasons, most of September and October flew by and I didn't get my book made. The free codes expire at the end of November.
Eek.
But good news, you can win this week and still have time to make a book to order by the end of November, because guess what? It's that easy. Even for a complete digital photo book dummy like myself.
I've been familiar with the high-quality of Shutterfly's photo books since 2007, when two glorious specimens arrived on my doorstep in Mountain House, California: the two digital books digital genius Anna Aspnes made for The Scrapbooker's Almanac. I was completely in awe, because good heavens, they were incredible. They also had the unfortunate effect of making me very scared of Shutterfly's photo book service, because I had no idea how one would even begin to make something even half as amazing as what I was holding in my hand. Did I mention Anna Aspnes is a digital genius? She is. Wow. I still shake my head that she agreed to be a contributor in my book, because I know how to do two things in Photoshop: 1.) put text on top of photos and 2.) apply a drop shadow to something about 60% of the time. (The other 40% of the time I fail at this simple task, for reasons only known to the Photoshop Elements elves that change the directions, or undo my work... or something).
Anyway. Back to August. I said yes, because really—I shouldn't be scared of Shutterfly. Shutterfly seems quite friendly, in fact. Friendly enough to reach out to a digital dummy like me! Here's the thing: you don't have to be Anna Aspnes to pull off a beautiful photo book. I mean, it helps, definitely. But there are LEVELS of photo books available: the level at which someone like Anna works, where you wave your magic wand at your computer screen and end up with print-ready art, and the level where there are instructions and options and helpful little built-in guides that make the process fun, flexible, and quite easy.
Here is the part of this post where if your name is Kattie or Richard or Beverly, you should close the window and go do something else. You've been warned.
I decided to make my photo book with the photos we took at the Inauguration; I had already selected the ones you see here for the album I posted in January, and I had more photos on my computer that I uploaded to Shutterfly. It took a while, because I uploaded the original size photographs—I am not much of an instruction reader, so there is a very good possibility that it took me far longer to upload than it needed to (plus it's possible that our cable internet isn't as fast as other services).
After that, I poked around a little in the "make a photo book" section and found that there are a few ways to make a book, plus lots of sizes and options (different covers, different sizes, etc.) I decided to try "custom path" to put it together. It didn't take long to discover the storyboard tool, which allowed me to arrange and rearrange pictures in order; when I didn't have the right picture in the right place, I just dragged it to a different page and saved it. A few times I decided to upload a few extra items to fill out the book so it would be 20 pages, and this was also easy to pause the process and go upload a few more photos to the project album. Next came captions; I borrowed some of the writing I had already done back in January to include underneath the photos. All of this took me approximately two hours, but keep in mind that I am like a blackbird and the internet is my shiny thing, so I am sometimes (all the time?) easily distracted. But still, I had the makings of a (very simple) photobook in a small amount of time!
Here's what I really like about Shutterfly's service:
• It was very easy to figure out, even for someone like me who has never made a photo book online before.
• There are many options for fonts, colors, designs, and styles.
• If you choose, you can allow the storyboard tool arrange your pictures on the page in a basic format like I did.
• It is easy to go back and make changes, add photos, rearrange photos, etc. without needing to start from scratch.
• I am impressed enough that I might work on learning how to do some "quickpages" or digital templates made just for photo services like this one.
• I already know the books are good quality, because I've seen Anna's in person. It shouldn't take too long to receive mine in the mail, and I'm excited to see them, too!
• It is extremely easy to make duplicates to give to other people, and it looks like my book will be saved on the Shutterfly site for as long as I want it to be there.
Minor criticisms:
• The space for captions was small—only about four lines per page. This might not be a problem for someone less wordy for me, but I had to cut out a lot of detail to fit into the caption box. Of course, if I learn how to do actual print-ready pages to upload, I can include as much writing on a page as I want.
• The shipping is expensive. At least in my book.
Would you like to win a free photobook? I have three to give away! The special codes must be used by November 30, so if you're headed out on a three week tour of Europe maybe let this one go by. But otherwise, if I can make a book in one evening, so can you! Leave a comment if you'd like to be entered to win; I'll close the comments on Thursday night, just after my hour and a half of Project Runway and Models of the Runway, so about 9:30 Mountain Time. I'll be sure to share my finished product when it arrives!
Maddie went to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster today for an all-day field trip. She's been there before, back in 2006, just before she turned 4 years old:
The story is documented in this blog somewhere, how Maddie stuck her hand right out to hold that gigantic tarantula while Matt and I cowered on the other side of the room. She dressed herself that day, as she has every day since she was about two years, three months old. The flower crown was a major fashion statement back then—she did that herself, too.
She was dressed and ready to go to school this morning by 6:30 (thanks for that, Daylight Savings Time) in the most flowery shirt she could find—selected, of course, to increase the odds of butterflies landing on her. No flower crown today, but she did opt for a flower clip. I didn't get to see her hold Rosie again (and there is a good chance that Rosie is still Rosie, since tarantulas have a lifespan of 15-25 years) but she said it was no problem at all—just stuck her hand out there and held that gigantic tarantula. She also held and petted the hissing cockroach. I'm still cowering in the corner after that disclosure.
One of my favorite parts of Halloween—roasted pumpkin seeds on November 1 : ) Highlights album to the left. Enjoy!
the view from the back door... had I planned to do this in the beginning I would have been more careful about where I was standing when I took each picture but it wasn't so deliberately planned in the beginning!
